The courses of studies for elementary, secondary and high school were revised from 1977. In this revision, for high school, “Geography A” (systematic geography) and “Geography B” (regional geography) were united into one subject, which became an elective under the new curriculum. At the same time new subject “Modern society” was newly-established. Since then, the aims, contents and methods of geography or social studies teaching in the new circumstances were discussed and proposed actively. This was accelerated by the introductions of geography teaching reforms and new geography in the foreign countries, for example U. K., West Germany, U. S. A.. How-ever, it should be pointed out that these discussions and proposals are mainly concerned with the mothodologies. So, it should be necessary to examine the contents as well as the methods.
The aim of geography teaching should consist of three elements, the development of social or international understanding, the development of comprehension and the aquisition of facts. The main element is social or international understanding. On the premise above mentioned, the purpose of the present papar is to clarify the learning conditions based on information through questionnaires and analisis of textbooks, to propose some teaching points in case of U. S. S. R. in high school geography.
The results are as follows:
(1) Before learing, although pupils understand for themseleves that U. S. S. R. is not a well-known country or region, the most of them have built the clear images of it with value judgements.
(2) And, the average number of the facts about U. S. S. R. which pupils have known are 4.6 items par capita. But, they are not always understood properly. Main channels of information are school education (57.4%) and mass-communication (27.6%). However, the latter channel contributes to the imagebuilding of the country more than the above proportion.
(3) Textbooks contain explanations of historical aspects, but, in them citations of terms and concepts, misuses of them, for example, “Kombinat” are found. They refer less to the shortcomings and problems of the industrial development in U. S. S. R. than to those in the other countries.
Proposed teaching points with their content are:
(a) “spatial noncoincidence of labor and raw materials” as a main regional framework,
(b) “emphasis on regionl variaties”, concentrating attention on spatial discrepancies in living conditions,
(c) and “planning and region” which deals with the relation between socio-economic plannings and regions.
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